JooJoo enters production, ships this month

It might have legal issues galore thanks to Chandra Rathakrishnan’s legendary row with Michael Arrington, but the internet tablet formerly known as the CrunchPad has finally entered into production and should begin shipping later this month. To retail for $499 USD, the JooJoo features a 12.1″ multi-touch capacitive display with native resolution of 1366 x 768, Wi-Fi 802.11b/g, 4GB SSD, front-facing camera, accelerometer, support for Flash (HD Flash will be all systems go when 10.1 comes out of beta) as well as a bunch of givens like integrated speakers, a 3.5mm headphone jack and USB port. Also announced today is Fusion Garage’s intent to open an app web store in which JooJoo owners will be able to grab whatever developers can make using some proprietary “but standards driven” APIs. Rathakrishnan et al are rather confident that their device will be able to take on competitors such as the HP Slate and Apple iPad, even going so far as to say of the later that the JooJoo is bigger, fully supports Flash (the real internet) and will beat its major competitors to the market, but one has to wonder what it’s all for in a day and age where most people are brand-conscious to the point where they’ll often turn away from something far better. We guess you have to start somewhere.

What OS is this running?
Is there a microSD expansion slot? 4GB sounds too limiting.

Certainly sounds better than the iPad, but probably won’t have much success since it’s not a known brand. Fusion Garage better come up with some GOOD marketing to establish brand recognition. And if this thing is shipping this month, they’d better start soon.

Mrwirez

Linux OS
Flash.10.1
Java
Usb
camera
speakers

Drew

Good stuff…!!!! Everything that big shiny tampon isn’t…

ErickB

Nerds and geeks, the iPad is not targeted at your fairly small market. Probably one of the reasons they didn’t call it the iTablet or iSlate since they are not really trying to do what real Tables or Slate devices do. If you want a real MacOS tablet, there is a great company that will convert a MacBook into one for you. It gives you just about all the things geeks have been asking for. But, it’s not light or easy for the non-geek user to operate.

Think of the market. Big=Good. Small=Not So Good.

Mill1978

I think developers will job on this because it will be easy to make apps for the system if it truely has real flash and internet!!

Mill1978

I meant (jump) sorry!!!

Electro

Interesting… everyone (and by that I mean just about every tech blog out there) made fun of the JooJoo when its price and specs were first announced, partly because of all the drama behind it’s development but also because it’s been described as a $499 touchscreen web browser. Who would buy that?! You can buy low-end laptops and netbooks for that price. (Seriously. I picked up a dual-core Intel 2.1Ghz ASUS laptop with 4GB RAM, 320GB HDD, and Windows 7 Home Premium for $450 a couple months back. A definite step up above a netbook, for about the same price. Now tell me I need a $499 tablet.)

Suddenly, with the release of the iPad, everyone takes it seriously. In fact, it suddenly looks very appealing since it is bigger, can actually multitask (AFAIK), and can run Flash. Holy crap! I’ll take three!

::Shakes head sadly::

Wendy’s Burgers

but…. for the same price, does your laptop have a touchscreen interface ? i don’t think so :)
this changes the whole game entirely.

Channan

Your comment was either full of sarcasm, or full of fail. I hope it was the former.

Wendy’s Burgers

I wasn’t being sarcastic. I was only pointing out the differences between a laptop and a tablet. and all I asked was if the “Electro’s” laptop had a touchscreen to justify the price and I didn’t think so. please let me know what I said that was so wrong, I would like to know please. Thank you.

Jim

Looks good but I wouldn’t buy unless there was a solid US based company to provide support, returns, etc.. If Google can hose its customers the way it did with the Nexus One, how much worse could it be with a no-name non-US company.

Drew

How are they getting hosed??

Mmmyes

Twice the depth and weight of the iPad, half the battery life, a quarter of the storage… we’ll see about customer service and technical support.
I think it’s all about the user experience it may provide, and so far it has not been shown, whereas with the iPad you know pretty much what you are getting.

michael

what an over sized ipod touch? that lacks with every mention of the work ipad.

Electro

^ Yeah… not much.

iJew

I will order one if I can stick Android on it.

http://twitter.com/Donald007 Donald007

I have to agree with Electro. It just seems pointless to buy netbook specs when you can get laptop specs for the same price. Netbook variants of all styles (iPad included) are geared torward a special audience but definitely not a person that prefers productivity over style.

Not to shun the netbooks in general because the old saying has always rang true “If you build it they’ll come”, there is a consumer base out there.

Also as far as app stores are concerned it seems before Apple, presenting an abundant app store before release of the product itself would be considered as putting the cart before the horse but look how many competitors are have established app stores today. It almost seems like the the JooJoo will float or sink off of this issue itself.

http://www.poop.com poopypants

If you have to have a tablet pc then here is how you chose between this and the iPad

If you want a tablet that resembles a netbook for 500 bucks, buy JooJoo

If you want a tablet that resembles a phone for 500 bucks, buy iPad

it depends on what you want, since these products are for people with money to burn and not for the average consumer. The average consumer is going to buy a desktop or laptop with more capabilities for cheaper then both tablets. They are useless devices and are wanted not needed.

Channan

If you want an over-priced tablet RUNNING a phone OS, buy iPad.

If you want an over-priced tablet that can’t do anything but surf the web, buy JooJoo.

If you want a good tablet that might be a little expensive, wait for the HP Slate.

victoria

Maybe Joojoo feels the tablet-fever that’s why they’re still pursuing the production of this device. Either way, I support them, not that I’m hoping too much, but them bringing another tablet to the table brings a new type of competition, which in somehow the users might benefit.

I’ll wait for Nokia’s next Maemo tablet. It won’t matter without a real OS and multitasking. I want a computer OS scaled down, not a serialtasking phone OS scale up. wtf?!

Christopher Cox

@Mill1978: I am willing to bet money they won’t. Most developers write apps for iPhone even though there are many other choices why? WebOS in the Palm Pre is easy to program for because it’s apps are based on web standards. Did developers jump on that? No they didn’t. Developers don’t choose a platform to write on simply because it’s easy to write for. Most choose a platform because it’s user base has the highest chance of receiving their software. IPhone market is saturated, but the ipad will be the next gold rush for developers. I will bet money that the ipad market will boom rapidly and we will have a huge app market for the new device in a short amount of time. I predict it’s app market will be similar if not less than what we see in the Pre. The next tablet that will be successful will either be an Android powered one, or Chrome … And that is only because of brand name. This one will fail after a year. The new android powered Acer I predict will give ipad a run for it’s money.

tanviper

I really don’t care about all it’s bell’s and whistles if it doesn’t have the software support behind it. the spec’s look nice, but without content such as books, movies, games, etc.. it would be just another expensive internet device.

Now, that being said, it it can get developers behind it and an easy way to get the content, then i think it would be a great device.

alen

since it supports flash you don’t need a lot of custom apps. people will buy this just because it plays farmville, mafia wars and you can surf the entire facebook site unlike the iDevices.

@Alen: I seriously doubt it. People want apps, not web pages that do a similar thing. When iPhone was first released they created an awesome API for web based apps that could do a lot. Apple took the stance that iPhone didn’t need native apps because web apps would take its place. While people can write awesome web apps for iPhone … and Google Voice and Latitude is proof of this, people were against it for the most part.

Channan

People want both. Apps are better, but not every website with Flash has an app, so you need Flash for the apps you don’t have.

But when it comes to a device that can surf the web with Flash only, or one with a full mobile OS on it, I’d choose the iPad, even though I already have an iPhone.

Christopher Cox

@Alen: And besides … look at what iPhone is capable of when it comes to gaming. And iPad with its bumped specs will take it to another level. You can’t seriously be thinking that people will see the possibility of flash games so they will buy this, over the 3D gaming awesomeness they see on the iPad? Give me a break. Web apps will never replace full native ones.

alen

i have a 3GS myself. but if it’s between the joojoo and the itampon, i’ll probably choose the latter.

reason for a lot of the apps on the iphone is no flash support. the iphone can run the unreal engine for games, but my wife doesn’t care. she likes farmville. and mafia wars sucks on the iphone compared to facebook. and the iphone facebook app is not as featured as the website.

something like 50 million people play zynga games on facebook. and you need flash for that

Christopher Cox

50 million people play World of Warcraft and nobody cares that they can’t play it on their phone. What’s your point? Taking gaming out of the equation, we already know that people in general think negatively of web apps compared to native ones. It was the main complaint when iPhone was first released. Just because this can do Flash, does not make it more preferred method of delivering things like apps.

Ilias

The reason people buy apps is because developers have created a great number of terrific ones. The reason they buy the iphone and ignore flash is because they are missing nothing (those who do buy perhaps Nokia or other phones). If you like flash so much, by all means buy a JooJoo. Leave the iPhone OS ecosystem. Nobody will notice.

ron

JooJoo Baby! Who comes up with these names?

Eric

I think the name is bad, but I think it looks cool. Has some things the iPad should of had.

Competition breeds innovation so bring on all comers. Maybe Steve Jobs will see that his iPad is missing some things?

Channan

It has Flash…

That’s it. iPad has WAY more than this, and I’m not buying the iPad because it’s too limited. Go figure.

http://www.natesdesign.com Nate

It only has a 4g hard drive. That’s a deal breaker.

boogalooboy

Too expensive with minute storage. If the HP Slate comes in cheaper that will be the one I buy.

Channan

It won’t, but I’m still buying it anyway. =)

Channan

I’d rather the iPad than this thing, and that’s saying something.

Bronxbomber

Put WebOS on this sucker!!!

http://BGR.com DannyDarko

First and foremost ,I think the IPAD is a joke.The concept is cool but the execution lacks in my opinion .I would rather wait for the HP,Tegra,or MSI Tablets to be released.We all want all the bells and whistles and want it cheap.It’s just not realistic at this point and time.That being said any kind of tech purchase is an investment so if it cost a little more so be it. It is worth it to wait and save for what you want than to settle and grab the first thing you see.There will be dozens of tablets being released this year so buy wisely people.

http://bickbot.com John Ellenich

Hey guess what? My iPads browser can multitask too!

So what makes this any different than an iPad running Safari?

Also– since when is Flash “the real internet”?

eazid

Since a large amount of the website nowadays use flash.

ErickB

A lot of computers use 3.5 inch floppies – oh, wait. They don’t anymore, do they? Flash is anything but. It’s a cpu hog and crashes more computers than just about anything I can think of.

My grandpa said the horseless carriages would never catch on because everyone had a horse, but not everyone had an oil well.

http://requestresponse.blogspot.com/ Mark

Your iPad? I didn’t know they were actually a shipping product yet. Where did you get yours from?

The whole flash-is-the-internet-or-not discussion has been had in many places already: